Our youngest patient was 10 years old: the new face of the diabetes epidemic
When it comes to diabetes, healthcare professionals could assume until recently that early teenagers presenting with high blood glucose levels were suffering from Type-1 diabetes, an auto-immune form of the disease. As a matter of fact, Type 2 diabetes was so rare among children that it used to be called adult-onset diabetes. Not anymore.
African and Caribbean communities are at the forefront of a worrying trend: children being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.